working to grow malignant cells outside the body, hoping to use them to find cancer’s cause and cure. But most cells died quickly, and the few that survived hardly grew at all. The Geys were determined to grow the first immortal human cells: a continuously dividing line of cells all descended from one original sample, cells that would constantly replenish themselves and never die. Eight years earlier—in 1943—a group of researchers at the National Institutes of Health had proven such a thing was possible using mouse cells. The Geys wanted to grow the human equivalent—they didn’t care what kind
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